Birds and Bees

As a former teenager, I can safely say telling teens not to think about sex is not an effective form of contraception. Granted, this was not a part of my sexual health education, which was confusingly taught in a theology class during my freshman year at a Jesuit high school. Teenagers think about sex, a lot. It's kind of their thing, what with all those chemicals raging, hair growing, and puberty generally happening. Girls start developing, guys start noticing. That's just nature. However, common practice over roughly the past decade was teaching kids to abstain from sex in sex education classes.

In fact, however, while abstinence education was in vogue, the teen pregnancy rate rose from 2005 to 2007. The rate declined from 2007 to 2008, the CDC said. Research contracted by the government from Mathematica Policy Research found that teens in the abstinence programs were no less likely to start having sex than other teens who had no sex ed in school.

On Oct. 1, of this year, the department of Health and Human Services announced the first funding of non-abstinence only sex education programs in over a decade. The five-year, $375 million program will give grants to 28 programs. Most of them will distribute condoms, but about half focus on keeping teens productive, educated, and busy. The focus of the program is not just about bumping uglies, but the importance of developing relationships -- not just learnin' teens about the body changes, but also the emotional ones.

"Birth control is distributed as part of the Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, one of the approaches that is getting HHS funding. But students also get art and music classes, science field trips, homework tutoring, mental health counseling and free medical and dental care. They're also required to get summer jobs, open a bank account, save 10% of their wages, and learn how to balance a checkbook," Kelli Kennedy said in the Associated Press piece on the new sex ed programs.

My sex ed program taught me about the miracle of life. It did not teach me how to balance a checkbook.

Even if sex ed programs over the last 10 years have not backed condom use, a refreshing report in The Journal of Sexual Medicine has found condom use is highest in teens than in any other age demographic. A survey of 5,865 people, including 800 respondents under 18, found 80% of boys and 69% of girls ages 14 to 17 reported using a condom the last time they had sex.

The survey also included data on sexuality, sexual satisfaction, and other topics.

If nothing else, the survey shows that kids are at least more willing to listen to a condom commercial than they are to listen at school.